Proust Moment, April 27, 2003

The Temporary and the Immortal

Marcel's two great-aunts vie for Swann's attention with a lot of dull prattle; he, naturally, would rather talk with the grandfather about a travel book by the Duc de Saint-Simon -- reportedly one of Proust's own inspirations -- covering his mission to Spain. Swann reports that the book is not one of the author's best, but better than what you find in the local papers This leads to a brief comparison between journalism and art.

"`The fault I find with our journalism is that it forces us to take an interest in some fresh triviality or other every day, whereas only three or four books in a lifetime give us anything that is of real importance. Suppose that, every morning, when we tore the wrapper off our paper with fevered hands, a transmutation were to take place, and we were to find inside it—oh! I don't know; shall we say Pascal's Pensees ?' He articulated the title with an ironic emphasis so as not to appear pedantic. `And then, in the gilt and tooled volumes which we open once in ten years,' he went on, shewing that contempt for the things of this world which some men of the world like to affect, `we should read that the Queen of the Hellenes had arrived at Cannes, or that the Princesse de Leon had given a fancy dress ball. In that way we should arrive at the right proportion between "information" and "publicity."'

--"Overture," Swann's Way

Leaving the admiring Proustian to wonder himself -- what if you picked up your own daily paper and found A la recherche du temps perdu?